CT curling clubs can teach you how to play
It has a lane like a bowling alley or a bocce court, the strategy of chess and some of the grace of ice skating. The sport of curling continually captivates viewers every four years when the winter Olympics come into season, culling attention from wrestler Mr. T, who became a fan of the sport at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics.
Mr. T isn’t the only supporter of the sport. In Connecticut, curling is gaining momentum thanks in part to local curling clubs that offer leagues and learning events for those interested. Bridgeport’s Nutmeg Curling Club hosts general “Learn to Curl” events where individuals or groups can spend an hour learning the ins and outs of the game from one of the club’s instructors. There’s even a “Curling & Cocktails” version offered by the Glenwood Avenue club in which budding curlers earn a cocktail after spending an hour on the ice learning the game.
According to the club’s director of marketing Jennifer Cummings, interest in curling has been steadily increasing. In fact, Cummings
got her start with the club after curling captured her attention in the 2018 Olympics.
“I joined with my husband when the men won the gold in the last winter Olympics,” she said. “Now I’m on the board and doing marketing for the club, and just since the Olympics have started, there are so many more calls. The ‘Learn to Curls’ are getting filled up, and people are interested. They see it on TV and they’re like, ‘I could try this.’”
The club’s events are being snapped up quickly, Cummings said, quickly enough that newlyadded events are filled within days.
“We put up an event last Tuesday, and we had 30 spots for our traditional ‘Learn to Curl,’ and by that Saturday, it was completely full,” she said. “We have to rearrange some things on the calendar to accommodate for more ‘learn to curls’ because it’s such a busy time with the Olympics.”
The Bridgeport-based club isn’t the only curling spot in the state. Litchfield County has the Norfolk Curling Club, which has a fiveweek spring league for those with little to no curling experience. The club also offers “Learn to Curl” events, and on Feb. 12, it hosted a sold-out “Olympic Open House” for participants ages 12 and older test out the sport.
While interest in the sport may be growing, curling itself has been around for centuries. Its origins date to 16th century Scotland, according to Time magazine, and its first recorded match took place in 1541 between a Scottish notary and a monk. Nearly 300 years later in 1828, Time notes that the first curling club in the U.S. was founded in Pontiac, Mich. Curling made its debut as a medal-earning Olympic sport in the 1924 games in Chamonix, France, according to TIME, and it was officially added to the Olympic program in 1998.
The U.S., however, earned its first gold medal in curling just four years ago when Minnesota native John Shuster led his four teammates through five consecutive victories to defeat the topranked Swedish team 10-7. Shuster is leading the team again this year, which has a 1-1 record after falling to Sweden in its most recent Olympic match. With Team USA’s men’s team seeking to defend its gold-medal status in the 2022 Olympics and attention mounting toward the sport once again, Cummings said the pull to give curling a try comes from both its methodical nature and its approachability.
“It’s very accessible to any age, and if you’re in relatively good shape, you can get really good at the sport very quickly — and even if you aren’t, you can still do well because it’s basically like shuffleboard on ice,” she said. “It’s more of a thinker’s sport. There’s strategy involved in how you get those stones down into the house and what you should throw next. In that sense, it’s almost like chess, where you have to think ahead to what your opponent is going to do.”
And a strategic game it is. The main objective is to aim for the center of a bulls-eye known as the “house” with each push of a granite stone on the ice, according to NPR. Sweeping along can help the stone travel farther or straighten its path, NPR reports; each throw of a stone aims to knock the opposing team’s stones out of the house or block their path. After eight rounds of play (or 10 if it’s an Olympic match), Cummings said it’s tradition for both teams to partake of a tradition known as “broomstacking,” in which the winning team buys the losing team drinks.
“At the end of the game, you sit around a table, and you talk about the game. You cheers each other and it’s all part of the tradition” she said.
It’s also how their “Curling & Cocktails” event came to be, according to Cummings, which is already filled to capacity for its Feb. 24 date. While the Nutmeg Curling Club won’t be doing any more of the cocktail events, it did add six more “Learn to Curl” events to their calendar that are already filling up quickly. They also have an open house on March 5.
As more attention is drawn to the sport, Cummings said those who opt for curling over other winter sports will find that there’s more to the game than what meets the eye.
“It’s more than just that adrenaline rush that you’re getting from other winter sports that are popular,” she said. “You’re also getting a lot of strategy, and there’s a lot more to the game than just going down a ski slope.”